I think that's the way to look at it, yeah. Larry's a great character, with the sort of social bravura and truth that we often wish we all had, but taken to extremes. And he never learns, because he doesn't think he has to.

So Daveybot was bored and went out and got a set-top box just to see if would work over the weekend. And it does! Reception actually got better - as long as the set-top aerial is sitting on the Quality Street tin (it's picky about location apparently). More4tastic! For somereason we don't get 5 at all, no loss there apart from CSI, and BBC4 which is much more annoying. But the Daily Show, Hooray!

Life on Mars is fast becomming the best thing on the telly at the moment. Anyone else watching it?

Great, hearty belly-laugh at the start of this week's episode with the unfit coppers chasing an unfit villain out of the swimming baths with just their trunks on. As an antidote to the impeccably carved out pecs and perfect teeth brigade we get these days, this was just magic.

And who would have thought the Test Card girl could be so freaked out creepy?

I found the Test Card Girl pretty scary when I was a nipper - I think they tapped into a genuine vein of fear there. Clowns are scary too; she was accompanied by one and they were both looking out of the screen at you as though you interrupted them in some kind of hideous conspiracy...

Sing ho, for decent telly on a Saturday night - Peter Ackroyd's The Romantics - which overdid itself a little on the visuals (this happened in London too) but was otherwise a very nuggety introduction to the birth and development of ideas behind that fulcrum of history - the French revolution. I liked almost all of it, bar the extensive brooding Ackroyd did on cross-channel ferries, and repreated images of blood trickling across frosty paved streets.

The dramatised pieces worked visually - couldn't fault any of the actors: David Threlfall excellent as Wordsworth, Dudley Sutton as Blake and David Tennant as Rousseau ( ), but they had a disconcerting and offputting way of dissolving into particles of golden light and toddling off into the ether when they'd said their bit. All a bit too much Dr Who, I think. Either that or the metaphor that they're with us still in our society, swirling around like golden cosmic dust.

Tongiht BBC Four are showing Wisconsin Death Trip as part of the Arena Strand. I did some promotional work on this when it was originally released and would recommend it to anyone. It a mix of gothic horror and quirky documentary.

Lesy discovered a striking archive of black and white photographs in the town of Black River Falls dating from the 1890’s and married a selection of these images to extracts from the town’s newspaper from the same decade. The effect was surprising and disturbing. The town of Black River Falls seems gripped by some peculiar malaise and the weekly news is dominated by bizarre tales of madness, eccentricity and violence amongst the local population. Suicide and murder are commonplace. People in the town are haunted by ghosts, possessed by devils and terrorized by teenage outlaws and arsonists.

__________________I recall a bigger brighter world
A world of books
And silent times in thoughtFlickr